A South Korean judge overseeing Samsung Group vice chairman Jay Y. Lee’s bribery trial yesterday told him to “humbly accept” the outcome of the trial, which could result in a tougher sentence for the conglomerate’s de facto leader.
Lee, whose Korean name is Lee Jae-yong, attended the first hearing of a bribery trial at Seoul High Court after the South Korean Supreme Court ordered a review of his 2017 graft case.
The top court in August overturned part of an appeals court bribery conviction against the third-generation Samsung leader, who was given a two-and-a-half-year suspended sentence for seeking favors from former South Korean president Park Geun-hye.
Photo: Bloomberg
The interpretation by the Seoul High Court on what constituted bribes by Samsung to Park was too narrow, the Supreme Court said.
“Please take this trial with an attitude to humbly accept whatever results of the trial will be,” Judge Jung Joon-young said before wrapping up the 40-minute hearing.
Arriving at the courthouse earlier, Lee stepped out of a van to a throng of journalists and made a brief comment, but did not answer questions about an accusation that he gave bribes to influence Park.
“I feel very sorry for causing concerns for many people,” a somber Lee said, bowing his head and walking into the court as anti-Samsung protesters jeered.
Jung said that Samsung should have internal control systems to prevent crimes committed by top executives of the conglomerate.
He also asked that 51-year-old Lee show leadership at the country’s top corporate giant, comparing him to his ailing father who suffered a heart attack in 2014.
“In 1993, at age of 51, Lee Kun-hee dropped old and rotten practices and declared a new management of Samsung and overcame crisis. In 2019, Lee Jae-yong, who became 51, what declaration should Lee make?” Jung told a packed courtroom.
“Please do what you need to do and can do even during the trial period as the leader of the corporation,” he told Jay Y. Lee.
The trial comes as South Korean President Moon Jae-in seeks help from big business leaders to resuscitate a fragile economy.
South Korean economic growth slowed more than expected in the third quarter, data released on Thursday showed.
Moon thanked Jay Y. Lee for Samsung’s commitment at a ceremony this month unveiling an US$11 billion investment in display technologies.
The Supreme Court last week closed a separate bribery case involving Lotte Group chairman Shin Dong-bin, allowing him to stay out of jail with a suspended jail sentence.
After the hearing, Jay Y. Lee and his lawyers did not answer questions from the media and left the courthouse.
Legal experts have said that a fresh verdict would be unlikely this year, meaning a further extension to legal troubles that have hovered over Jay Y. Lee and Samsung for nearly three years.
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
Three sisters from Ohio who inherited a dime kept in a bank vault for more than 40 years knew it had some value, but they had no idea just how much until just a few years ago. The extraordinarily rare coin, struck by the US Mint in San Francisco in 1975, could bring more than US$500,000, said Ian Russell, president of GreatCollections, which specializes in currency and is handling an online auction that ends next month. What makes the dime depicting former US president Franklin D. Roosevelt so valuable is a missing “S” mint mark for San Francisco, one of just two
RSS